


Perfect From Now On

by sneaqui



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: A little pining sprinkled in there, Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Depression, Hey remember when Quentin and Eliot had a kid because they do, Love Confessions, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Resurrection, Rimming, Saved from the underworld! AU, Temporary Character Death, not season 4 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24652843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneaqui/pseuds/sneaqui
Summary: “Look,” Eliot says, trying to remain as calm as he can manage. “I know there are a lot of timelines out there where you die before you hit thirty, but this is not one of them. In this timeline, any option that’s going to end in your death or dismemberment or life-long imprisonment is absolutely off the table. End of story.”“So that’s the end of it? You’ve just decided for both of us?”“Yeah,” Eliot says, “I have.”An end of season 3/beginning of season 4 AU in which Eliot kills the Monster, but it doesn’t take over his body. And instead of getting memory-wiped, the gang gets captured and thrown in library jail.A saved-from-the-underworld fic with a happy ending. Half caper and half romance with some smut thrown in.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 46
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xByteMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xByteMe/gifts).



> My Not Alone Here commission for the LOVELY @marqueliot. Thank you for the inspiration and for tolerating my lateness. <3
> 
> Beta-ed by [goingdownin221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingdownin221b/pseuds/goingdownin221b) Thank you for helping me work out the kinks!! <3 Any remaining mistakes are my own.  
> And big shout-out to [Maii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfTheDirewolves) for the sensitivity reading. You're THE SHIT.
> 
> The second half of this fic is almost finished and will be posted next week.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: The temporary character death scene at the end of this chapter has a couple of elements that bear resemblance to Quentin’s death scene in 4x13. Although in this fic the death is accidental/not intentional, anyone who was triggered by the end of 4x13 should see the author’s note at the end of this chapter for a more detailed description.

Alice’s mouth turns down in a deep, trembling frown as she tells Quentin that she’s chosen to have her memories of him erased. Forever, if everything works out the way she hopes it does. Quentin can tell that it’s not an easy decision for her, can see the guilt laid across her back, pressing her shoulders down. 

He sort of hates himself for not being more hurt than he is. But at this point, after all the bullshit, Quentin just wants Alice to be happy.

He hopes she never has to remember what she did as a Niffin. He hopes she doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life wondering whether or not she killed her dad. 

He wouldn’t mind forgetting that he’s about to do the same to his own. Forgetting that might be worth forgetting a lot of other things--

But he wants to remember that he loved Alice.

He wants to remember that magic exists and can do beautiful things.

_ Quentin was pacing just outside the front door of the cottage while, inside, Arielle screamed her way through another contraction. _

_ Quentin looked up to where Eliot was leaning against the door, blocking it in case he got any funny ideas about going inside. _

_ Like Quentin, he had bags under his eyes from not sleeping for almost forty-eight hours. His face was pale and his eyes were glassy and his hair was sticking out every which way from pulling on it, but he managed to dredge up half a smile for Quentin. _

_ “Don’t even think about it,” he said. _

_ “Eliot,” Quentin pleaded, desperate, “I can’t--what if she--” _

_ “Melish knows what she’s doing, okay?” Eliot said, referring to their midwife. “She’s been doing this for forty years. She’d tell us if anything was wrong. And I’ve got the horse all saddled up in case I need to--” _

_ The cottage went silent, and Eliot froze, a look of terror on his face that Quentin was sure matched his own--and then the unmistakable wail of a newborn echoed through their clearing-- _

_ Later, Quentin knelt next to their bed, unable to take his eyes off the tiny, angry-looking bundle squirming against Arielle’s sternum. Quentin pressed a cool cloth against her forehead, and she smiled so hard that tears collected at the corners of her eyes and said, “I’m never doing that again.” _

_ Later still, Arielle was catching a couple hours of sleep while Quentin cradled their son against his chest. He looked up to where Eliot had been hovering in the corner of the room. _

_ “Do you want to hold him?” Quentin asked. _

_ Eliot looked terrified for a second, and then he murmured, “Can I?” like Quentin had just offered him a gift he wasn’t sure he deserved. _

_ Quentin stepped up close to him, almost chest-to-chest with Eliot as he transferred the sleeping baby into his strong arms. _

_ Eliot tucked the baby close, staring down at him with a smile so wide it showed his teeth. “Hi there, little one,” he murmured, his voice a deep, rumbling burr. The baby snuggled into his chest, as though already taken with him. “Welcome to the family.” _

Quentin’s garbage brain isn’t good for a whole lot, but it has managed to somehow hold on to these moments. And Quentin wants all of them.

He wants to remember the day that Teddy was born and the day that he married Arielle.

He wants to remember the day that he married Eliot. How beautiful he’d looked with flowers in his hair.

And even though it hurts, Quentin wants to remember that he still loves him. That regardless of how Eliot feels about him now, he once loved Quentin, well and for an entire lifetime.

He doesn’t want to hurt Alice but even just for a few hours, he wants someone else to know the truth: That once, Quentin lived an entire life and was happy.

“You’re the one that I love, Q,” Alice says. “You’re the one.”

“Alice, um,” Quentin says, and takes a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

-

“Cool, so we’re all in Library jail because you broke up with your girlfriend,” Penny 23 says from the cell next to Quentin’s.

Quentin sighs. “That’s not why she did it, Penny. She’s been through a lot lately that you wouldn’t understand.”

“Sounds like you don’t either.”

“No, I don’t,” Quentin says. “Which is why, unlike Eliot, I don’t think finding her should be our first priority when we get out of here.”

Eliot tries to pull a protestation out of the swarm of thoughts Quentin’s little reveal has kicked up inside his head. The buzzing in his ears makes it hard to think, but something that he keeps coming back to, that he always comes back to is: “I thought you’d want to go after her.” He doesn’t necessarily mean to say it out loud, but he does, quiet enough that Quentin might not even hear him across the cell wall separating them.

_ You always want to go after her. _

_ For weeks, months, you talked about her; about what you could do to help her. _

_ And then one night you kissed me-- _

“We’re not going after her,” Quentin says in the tone he uses when he’s done talking about something.

Eliot sighs and pushes himself off the wall. “Fine,” he says, more forceful than is really fair.

Quentin doesn’t actually owe him any insight into the inner workings of his heart. Not after Eliot shut down all discussion of that particular topic in the throne room, sabotaging the only opportunity he might have had to be with Quentin again.

Penny, eternally uninterested in Eliot’s emotional turmoil, says, “Those pneumatic tubes--they work on magic, right? If we could find a way to break them open--”

“There’s still anti-magic paint coating our cells,” Eliot says, rubbing his forehead and then yanking his hand away in disgust when he remembers how oily it is after three days without a shower. “In the time it would take us to peel off enough to do anything, the librarians would notice. We need a faster way to physically break open the barrier it’s creating.”

“People who don’t have magic break out of prison all the time,” Penny says.

“Yeah, people who are allowed to leave their cells,” Quentin says.

“One of us could turn informer,” Eliot says. “Convince them we care more about access to magic than we care about our friends. Say, someone who made it three-quarters of the way through a BFA in Theatrical Arts?”

“I’ll do it,” Quentin says, because of course he does. “You’re a better caster than me, El. You’ll be more helpful if we need to fight our way out of here. And Penny, we’ll need you to travel.”

“Q, you’re public enemy number one right now,” Eliot says. “In what world does it make sense that you’d double cross us?”

“It doesn’t make sense that any of us would do it,” Quentin says, “but someone has to.”

“Q, if they figure out that you’re lying, they’ll either kill you or chain you to a book cart for a billion years.”

“I know that,  _ Eliot _ ,” Quentin growls.

“And, I’m out,” Penny says. “You guys figure out whatever the hell it is you need to figure out.”

“Where are you going?” Eliot asks.

“Into my head,” Penny says. “I need to see what’s blocking me from traveling. And it’s better than listening to you two argue.”

Which leaves Eliot alone to try and talk some sense into Quentin. Goody.

Quentin barely waits the requisite amount of time it takes to be sure a psychic has left the room before starting in on him. “You don’t get to do this, Eliot. You don’t get to pull this protective, overbearing bullshit. Not when you don’t--” He stops, takes a deep breath, and sighs it out the way he does when he’s too frustrated to put his thoughts in the proper order.

“Look,” Eliot says, trying to remain as calm as he can manage. “I know there are a lot of timelines out there where you die before you hit thirty, but this is not one of them. In  _ this  _ timeline, any option that’s going to end in your death or dismemberment or life-long imprisonment is absolutely off the table. End of story.”

“So that’s the end of it? You’ve just decided for both of us?”

“Yeah,” Eliot says, “I have.”

“God, you always do this,” Quentin says.

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do. Like when you threatened that--that kid. What was his name?”

_ What? _ “Who?”

“That kid that Teddy was always hanging out with. The one who always wore his hair in braids.”

“Which one?” Eliot asks. “The one with the wooden tooth implants or the one that weirdly knew Kristy Swanson’s entire filmography?”

“How do you even remember--”

“Ephran,” Eliot says, the name coming to him. “The kid who almost got Teddy killed when he drove our cart into a ditch.”

“It was an accident,” Quentin insists for what must be the hundredth time. “He was a good kid.”

“No, he was charming,” Eliot says, “and he knew how to get on your good side.”

“He was a  _ kid _ \--”

“Eighteen years old is not a kid.”

“--and you threatened to throw him into the Northern Marshes. You didn’t even tell me about it. I had to find out the next market day--”

Eliot growls, “I would have flung that fucking kid into the sun if it meant he never put our son in danger again.”

The words ‘our son’ must sucker-punch Quentin the same way they do him if Quentin’s flat, nauseated “Eliot...” is anything to go by.

Eliot sighs, all the fight going out of him. “I know,” he says.

“Do you?” Quentin says. “Do you know what this feels like?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then, how? How are we still--breathing? How can you stand it, Eliot? Our son is gone.”

“He’s not gone,” Eliot says, fierce. “He may not be--” he swallows, not wanting to think it let alone say it, “--but he’s not gone.”

“How do you know that?” Quentin asks.

“Because it happened,” Eliot says.

“Did it?” Eliot hears the scratch of Quentin’s uniform against the bricks as he slides down the wall of his cell. “Are we crazy?”

Eliot crouches down next to the wall--as close to Quentin as he can approximate--and reaches out to press his hand against the bricks. “Look,” he says, “Jane got the key to make the time loops because we solved it, right? So it had to have happened.”

“Yeah,” says Quentin, a little wobbly.

Eliot strokes his thumb against the bricks, imagines it’s the scratchy material of Quentin’s uniform, his skin warm underneath. “You remember how we used to worry? That we’d leave him alone? But we didn’t, Q. We were there for him until--until we couldn’t be. He had a family. He had Marion and the grandkids. He lived a full life, Q. He was happy.”

Quentin is silent on the other side of the wall. And then he says, in a small voice, “I miss him, El. I’ve never even met him, and I miss him.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Eliot says.

“I miss Arielle. I miss all of them. I even miss our asshole in-laws.”

Eliot chokes out a surprised laugh, shoulders shaking.

Maybe they can do this. Maybe they can talk about it sometimes. Try and wrap their heads around it. Figure out how those fifty years of memories fit into their lives before they go--making a proposal under a wedding arch before Eliot’s even had time to process what the hell just happened.

“Q, I’m sorry,” Eliot says. Regardless of how he feels about Quentin, protecting their friendship needs to be his first priority. “I mean, I’m not sorry about what I did in Blackspire. But I am sorry that I didn’t try and talk to you first.”

Quentin says nothing, but he also doesn’t tell Eliot to fuck off, which is a good sign.

Eliot goes on, “I don’t want you to be anyone but who you are, and who you are is always doing something ill-advised, but--you scare the shit out of me sometimes.”

“El,” Quentin says, quiet.

But Eliot can’t stop talking, apparently. “I can’t lose you,” he says.

“Eliot, I--” Quentin chokes on whatever he was going to say next. He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “Same, I mean. For me. To you.”

Eliot smiles. “So how are we supposed to get out of here without putting either of ourselves in mortal danger?”

Quentin sighs. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

-

The next couple of nights Eliot falls asleep curled up against the wall next to his cot. It’s hell on his ass, but it’s worth it to feel closer to Quentin than he has since the mosaic. The two of them talk long past lights-out--about their escape plan, about nothing particularly important, about how the fuck they survived fifty years without a single cup of coffee.

Six days into their confinement, Eliot’s startled awake in the middle of the night by a rhythmic, metallic banging that sounds like it’s coming from the ceiling. After a few seconds the banging stops, and Eliot waits, listening. He hears a grunt, the loud clash of something falling to the floor in the cell next to his, and then two softer thumps.

Quentin starts screaming to wake the dead.

“Jesus, do I look that bad?” says a familiar voice.

Eliot is up on his feet, pressed against the wall of his cell. He calls out, “Bambi!” but it’s drowned out by Quentin’s high-pitched, panicked babbling.

“Margo, what--who--who the fuck is that?”

“How should I know?” Margo says. “He’s been dead for at least a decade.”

“Okay, but--but why is he here?”

“He was blocking the vent. I couldn’t just leave him there. I barely fit through it as it is. Christ, it’s like you’ve never seen a dead body before.”

“Margo!” Eliot shouts this time.

“Eliot,” she calls back, sounding just as desperate as he feels. The next time she speaks her voice is much closer, coming from just under the opening high up on the wall that he and Q have been communicating through. “El, are you okay?”

“Yes,” he says, and then, “No. I’m wearing canvas pajamas. And I’m seriously considering blowing a librarian for a tub of Nivea.”

Margo groans, “Tell me about it. I’m using the time I would usually spend moisturizing doing push-ups. If nothing else I want to walk out of here with arms like Angela Bassett’s.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin cuts in, the speed at which he’s talking indicating that he hasn’t calmed down at all. “I know you guys are--but, Margo, how--how did you get up into the vents? And where is your eye?”

“I rolled it out into the hallway so it could keep watch.” She sounds almost bored. Like everything she’s saying should be obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention. “I’ve got a message for you guys but our usual game of telephone is broken since Twenty-Three got taken out of his cell last night. I guess his journey to the Dark Side is complete. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Our informant,” Quentin says, hushed, almost reverent.

“What?” Margo says.

“Bambi,” Eliot says, trying to pull Margo’s focus away from Quentin before his dream of recreating The Shawshank Redemption blows them off course. “What’s the message?”

“That you fuckos need to gird your loins. We’re going into battle tomorrow morning.”

“Since when?” Quentin asks.

“Since Kady nabbed the Truth Key just before the Scooby Doo villains tied our hands behind our backs. Apparently, Julia’s still got some residual goddess powers that she used to shave it into a flathead. Kady managed to open up the pneumatic pipes with it. To no one’s surprise, Prison Kady is fucking terrifying.”

“That’s not gonna be enough magic to do anything,” Quentin says.

“Which is where Josh, of all people, came in useful,” Margo says, as surprised as anyone. “You know how desperate they’ve been to get us to eat? Josh made up some shit about having really specific dietary needs and asked for some weird moss that no one’s ever heard of. Kady shoved it into the pipes where it’s been growing for the past day or so. Josh said it should get large enough to bust the PVC open by tomorrow morning.”

Eliot looks up to the edge of his ceiling and sure enough, there’s a wooly mass of light green tendrils spreading through the pipes, getting bigger before his eyes.

“Huh,” Quentin says. And then a few seconds later, “What are we gonna do about the anti-magic paint?”

“Julia says she’s got a plan for that,” Margo says, “so all you babes have to do is be ready to break open your wards in a few hours.”

“Oh,” Quentin says.

Dammit. Quentin’s terrible with wards.

“That’s the other reason why I’m here,” Margo says, and Eliot can hear the smile in her voice, eternally endeared to their little nerd. “Don’t worry, Toto. We wouldn’t leave you behind.” 

-

They spend the next few hours working on their battle magic. This mostly consists of Eliot stretching and digging deep into what he remembers of esoteric Justinian dynasty magic. Which turns out to be more than he thought his drug-addled brain capable of retaining.

He smiles as he listens to Margo coaching Q.

“You have to loosen up your wrists,” Margo is saying. “And your elbows. And your shoulders.”

“They  _ are  _ loose,” Quentin says.

“Well, they need to be looser. This isn’t Popper, honey, this is Russian court magic. These guys were day-drinking vodka strong enough to kill viruses.”

It seems to go well, all told.

“You got this, baby boy,” Margo says to Quentin a couple hours later. And then she slaps his ass, if the hard thwap and Quentin’s surprised yelp are anything to go by.

Not long after that, she passes out on Quentin’s cot, and he and Eliot are left alone together to discuss important matters.

“--the movie’s fantastic,” Quentin says, “but the novel is really, deeply feminist. Which is amazing considering it’s a fantasy novel written in 1968. Like, Lir’s the knight so he should be the hero, but in the end, the unicorn saves him and drives the Red Bull back into the sea. So she becomes the hero and he becomes the damsel.”

“Like  _ Fira and the Bear _ ,” Eliot says.

Quentin is silent for a moment, and then he says, quiet, “You remember that?”

Eliot chuckles. “Teddy only made you read it to him every night between the ages of four and five.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. “Yeah, just like that. Except, you know, Peter S. Beagle doesn’t go into unnecessarily long tangents about the size of Amalthea’s tits the way Fillorian children’s book writers do.”

“Totally inappropriate,” Eliot agrees. “Like those religious YA novels that Arielle’s family used to give to Teddy.”

“God, I remember those,” Quentin says. “The ones with the multi-page descriptions of Ember’s genitalia.”

“I never could figure out why they thought those would be appropriate for a ten-year-old.”

“I think they did that just to fuck with us,” Quentin says. “To punish us for the fact that I married their daughter.”

“They hated us, didn’t they?”

“They  _ hated  _ us,” Quentin says, laughing. “They thought we were such snobs.”

“To be fair,” Eliot says, “we sort of are.”

“Poor Arielle,” Quentin says. “She had to listen to us talk so much shit about them.”

“I’m sorry, ‘us’?”

Quentin snorts. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

He’s silent for a moment then, no doubt replaying old memories just like Eliot is.

“Do you think she lived?” Quentin says, after a moment. “Like, if there are two parallel universes running side by side, one where we went to Fillory and one where we didn’t--Do you think in the one where we didn’t go, maybe she lived?”

Eliot’s thought about it more than once over the past few weeks. He knows as well as anyone that wishing doesn’t make it so, and who knows how fucking with spacetime affects human illness, but, “I hope so.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, “me too.”

“We could try and find out,” Eliot says. “They were already keeping pretty detailed census records at that time. If we ever get back to Fillory, we could try and find out what happened to her.”

“Yeah. I’d like that,” Quentin says, soft and almost surprised. As if Eliot  _ wouldn’t _ want to find the person that was their partner for almost five years and the mother of their son.

Quentin says, “You know, I bet the Library has a copy of  _ The Last Unicorn _ . You used to like it when I read to you.”

Eliot laughs. “Yeah, but  _ you  _ didn’t.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? Did you enjoy it when I’d zone out and then force you to summarize entire chapters for me?”

“You have ADD,” Quentin says. “It’s hard for you to focus.”

“Or was it my charming running commentary?” Eliot asks.

“I did enjoy that, actually,” Quentin says, defensive on Eliot’s behalf.

“Or when I’d get bored and force you to pay attention to me--”

“By laying your head in my lap.”

Whatever Eliot was going to say next sticks in his throat. He lets out a choked, “Yeah.”

“And you wouldn’t shut up until I ran my fingers through your hair,” Quentin says, and Eliot can hear the smile in his voice at the recalled memory. 

“Yeah,” he says again.

“And you’d nose up under my shirt,” Quentin says, maybe a little quieter this time, “kiss my stomach.”

“Q,” Eliot gasps, a hot flash of desire splitting him open.

“Eliot,” Quentin murmurs, and it sounds like surrendering.

Eliot is breathless, his skin catching fire. “Q,” he says again, uselessly.

He presses the tips of his fingers to his forehead. It’s all on him not to break whatever fragile thing Quentin has just handed him. All he has to use are his words, but all he can think is, “God, I wish I could touch you.”

“I--” Quentin’s voice trembles a little. “I wish I could fucking  _ see  _ you.”

Eliot breathes out a surprised laugh, says, “Sweetheart, you don’t want to see me right now. I haven’t shaved in almost a week.”

“I like it when you don’t shave,” Quentin says.

“Fuck, Q,” Eliot groans. Because he did--eighty years ago in a lifetime that both did and didn’t happen. Whenever Eliot had a beard or simply hadn’t shaved in a few days Quentin would  _ beg  _ Eliot to get between his legs. Ask for Eliot’s mouth on his cock or his ass just so he could wrap his thighs around Eliot’s jaw, setting fire to all that soft, pale skin.

Eliot remembers it like it was yesterday.

The same way he remembers Quentin being in love with Alice just a couple of weeks ago. How could that have changed in such a short time? Unless it’s actually been a long time?

“Q,” Eliot says, bracing himself. What a horrible feeling. For half of your heart to be entirely in someone else’s hands. “Why did you break up with Alice?”

Quentin’s cell is completely silent for a moment, and then he sighs and says, “She came back a different person, after she was a niffin. And I wanted to know who she was, and I wanted to see if we still fit. But she couldn’t trust that. She couldn’t trust  _ me  _ anymore. I brought her back but I couldn’t fix that. And after everything that had happened, I couldn’t really trust her either.”

Eliot’s stomach drops. Because that’s exactly what he’d done: Quentin had laid bare the contents of his heart in the throne room, and Eliot had refused to trust it.

A booming crack over Eliot’s head has him scrambling to his feet. He looks up to see that the pneumatic pipe running across his ceiling has burst open, wooly tendrils crawling out of both open ends along with-- _ magic. _ It fills Eliot’s lungs when he inhales, ignites his bloodstream, tingles down his arms and across his palms and into the tips of his fingers.

“Q?” he calls out. “Margo? Do you feel that?”

“Oh my god,” Q says, shocked. “They actually did it.”

Margo sounds less than excited when she says, “It’s not over yet. You guys might want to duck and cover.”

“What?” Eliot says, just as the floor beneath him starts to tremble. “Quentin. Margo.”

“We’re fine,” Margo says. “Just grab something and hold on.”

Eliot ducks underneath the table in the middle of his room, clings to one of its legs and waits, like maybe if he just holds still the shaking will stop.

It doesn’t stop. The room jerks to one side, and then the other, and then again, quicker and quicker, tossed back and forth as the earth beneath convulses. Eliot’s cot jumps across the floor, its metal feet clanging against the concrete until it slams against the table, nearly taking off Eliot’s fingers where they’re wrapped around the table leg.

Eliot can feel the immense power behind the quake, immeasurable rage and grief so deep it vibrates through his chest and shakes the walls. It reaches up into the masonry on all sides of him and starts to crack it open.

The resultant cracks aren’t quite wide enough to see through, but they’re wide enough for the magic to get in.

The wards keeping Eliot’s door locked flash before his eyes, and as the shaking subsides he steps out from under the table, already starting to pick them apart.

The wards on all of their cells are connected, woven together like a giant net. And their magic intertwines as they work--Eliot’s and Quentin’s and Margo’s and Josh’s and Kady’s. Julia’s is there too, flashing bright and somehow far more powerful than anyone else’s.

Eliot’s glad he practiced his pre-Reformation spell work, because it’s in there. Hidden like little landmines in the spellwork. He catches a couple of them in Margo’s wards, and she picks a couple of Rasputin Locks out of his. As soon as they’re mostly broken apart, Quentin jumps in, cleaning up what Eliot and Margo don’t have time to finish. 

A rapid vibration like the beating of hummingbird wings slips through the wards, and Eliot knows immediately that it’s a traveler, hopefully Penny 23 and hopefully still on their side. He’s in one of the cells down the hall for just a moment before his magic disappears along with Julia’s.

Of course he’s traveled her away first. Eliot can’t say he wouldn’t do the same in Penny’s place but, dammit, they could really use Julia’s magic right now.

Penny appears again, closer this time. He and Kady both blip out for just a second, and then they’re back, now in the hallway on the opposite side of Eliot’s door.

Penny is saying, “If I don’t get you out of here, Julia’s gonna cut my nuts off.”

“Travel me and I’ll do it myself,” Kady snarls. “Get Josh.” And then her magic is swirling into Eliot’s wards, pulling them apart almost faster than he can.

With a pissed-off grumble, Penny travels into another cell down the hall, and then he and Josh both disappear.

The wards start to unravel quickly with all four of them working on two, and they’re so close to unlocking them when something knocks Kady’s magic away. Eliot hears the thump of a body hitting the ground out in the hallway, then a pained groan.

The librarians have arrived.

Just in time, Penny materializes in Quentin’s cell. He and Margo barely have a chance to protest before they’re being traveled away.

Thank god.

But now Eliot’s on his own with Kady temporarily out of commission.

An unfamiliar magic appears in his wards and pops them open all at once. Through his door walks a librarian, and Eliot has his hands up, ready to shield himself when a Force Push throws the librarian across the room, their back slamming into the wall with a cracking thud.

Eliot hears an angry growl, and then Quentin’s there. And oh god just seeing him, in all his long-haired, wild-eyed, pissed-off glory--seeing him for the first time in almost a week--has Eliot whimpering a little noise of assent as Quentin grabs his hand and pulls him out towards the hall. 

There, Margo is throwing shit that Eliot’s never even seen before at the oncoming librarians. She stands in front of Kady, shielding her while Penny helps Kady to her feet.

Penny is just reaching out to grab onto Quentin’s hand so they can all travel the fuck out of there when something twists his arms behind his back, locking them there. “Fuck,” Penny spits, falling to his knees, and Kady’s already at his back, trying to free him. Leaving Eliot and Quentin and Margo to shield her while she works.

They’ve never fought side by side like this before, but somehow it comes naturally.

Eliot and Margo know the more esoteric, complex stuff that Quentin doesn’t know. But when the solid mid-level stuff that Quentin does know hits, it hits  _ hard _ . He’s a force to be reckoned with when he’s angry.

He throws a Sound Cannon that knocks three librarians off their asses simultaneously, and suddenly the hallway is empty. Just the five of them and their heavy breathing as they wait for more librarians to show up.

A full ten seconds pass, and no one appears, and for a moment, Eliot wonders if maybe they’ve pulled it off.

He should know better than to hope

A dull, grey man dressed in the dull, grey uniform of the Library rounds the corner, and Eliot is mere seconds from underestimating him before the energy field surrounding him almost knocks Eliot to his knees.

Eliot can sense his intent before he actually sees it. The man presses his palms together and touches his steepled fingers to his chin. He pulls them down his neck towards the base of his throat, slow and hard like he’s drawing a scalpel.

This is Sarif’s Disassemblage. This is a spell that takes apart everything in its path, atom by atom, including spellwork. Ali’s recording of it is the only reason anyone knows it exists, and even he never attempted it. Smart considering there’s a high probability it kills the caster.

Quentin has likely never even heard of it. Margo probably knows it but not the obscure spell that might be the only way to counteract it.

Eliot’s been considering writing his Master’s thesis on it.

Glezos’ Mirror isn’t without risk, but it’s better than the one hundred percent chance they have of dying in approximately forty seconds if someone doesn’t do something.

Eliot looks over at Quentin, already going through the motions of battle magic. Eliot doesn’t have time to explain, to say everything he needs to say. Doesn’t have time to fucking argue with Quentin about this.

Eliot reaches his magic out to find the Truth Key in Kady’s pocket. He yanks on it, and it flies into his hand. He turns and grabs Quentin’s hand with both of his to press the key against it.

The instant he does, Quentin’s expression cracks open in revelation. “Eliot…” he says, his eyes lighting up like they do when they land on Eliot’s face. Like they’ve done almost since the day they met, and-- _ oh _ . Oh, Eliot’s a fucking idiot. How could he not have known?

It radiates from Quentin, thrums under his skin like a heartbeat. Eliot can feel it through their joined hands, calling out to the same thing that runs through his veins, something that, for so long, he’s been trying to drown in whatever substance he can get his hands on.

It’s the shocking joy of falling in love with your best friend. It’s exhilarating and devastating and--

_ \--it made complete sense, the way it clicked into place like something inevitable. It never felt like this with Julia. Even with Alice it never felt this way.  _

_ It was like surfacing suddenly, after months-- _ years-- _ of depression pulling him under. Painful pins and needles in his chest as something inside of it woke back up. _

_ How had he lived without this for twenty-five years? _

Quentin’s thoughts are a jolt through Eliot’s body, knocking the breath from his lungs and making him gasp. He has to close his eyes against it, his head falling forward, and Quentin is there in a second, pushing back up against Eliot. Their foreheads and their hands press together, creating a closed circuit of fire.

Some terrified part of Eliot screams at him to let go, but he just holds on tighter, letting Quentin feel the same steady, relentless beat of longing in his own heart.

Eliot can hear the joy in Quentin’s voice when he says, “Eliot,” drawn out like a holy word. His mouth gently wrapping around each syllable with such care.

“Q,” Eliot says, tremulous, with every ounce of feeling he can put into a single letter. He reaches down to brush Q’s hair off the back of his neck for just a second, to run his thumb along the back of Q’s hairline.

The dull, grey man’s spellwork begins to prick the skin on his back, and Eliot pulls his hand away from the key, leaving it clasped between Quentin’s.

He looks up over Quentin’s shoulder, hoping that maybe Kady has freed Penny. That they can all just travel out of here.

No such luck.

Eliot looks down at Quentin, for what he hopes isn’t the last time. God, please, don’t let it be the last time.

He closes his eyes and turns, already flexing his fingers and centering himself, almost faltering when Quentin says, confused, “Eliot?”

He takes a deep breath, pushes it out through his nose, emptying his mind, pushing out every thought he doesn’t need.

Eliot extends his arms down along the front of his chest, curls his hands into fists and presses his wrists together. He snaps his thumbs and pinkies to full extension and throws his arms out to the side and then up over his head, forming the mirror. It shimmers in front of him, bleeding out past the edges he’s carved, widening until it almost fills the hallway, strengthening as he circles his palm over its surface.

It’s never been this easy before, but then, Eliot’s never done it with the man he loves standing behind him. He lets all of his passion and his hope and his desperation course through him and out through his hand as he moves it in ever smaller circles, towards the center of the mirror where it’s densest.

It’s almost opaque now; through it he can just see the dull grey man’s hands moving through the final motions of the Disassemblage, so fast it’s almost inhuman. Eliot can already feel the gravity of it trying to pull his mirror apart.

Circling his palm through the center of the mirror is like trying to push his hand through poured concrete, and Eliot grits his teeth, muscles burning.

“Got it,” Kady yells somewhere behind him just as the dull grey man lets his hands explode apart in front of him.

The spell comes barreling down the hallway, fast but in the deceptively gentle form of thousands of tiny sparks.

Eliot braces himself, clenching his hand shut to hold the mirror steady.

“Get them out of here!” he yells over his shoulder, hoping that Kady and Penny understand. “Come back for me.”

“Eliot!” Quentin screams, a terrified bellow that’s a knife in Eliot’s gut.

The Disassemblage slams into Eliot’s mirror, throwing him backwards just as the four other Magicians disappear.

Eliot scrambles to his feet, ready to fight, only to see that the Disassemblage is now flying back down the hall the way it came, weakened now--much of it absorbed by the mirror--but still strong enough to pierce the dull grey man. His face contorts into a rictus of horror as the magic pulls him apart, as he splits into ever smaller pieces before at last dissolving into nothing but energy. A gentle breeze that blows through Eliot’s hair as he kneels on the ground, awestruck.

The hallway is silent, and so is Eliot. And then he starts to laugh. He did it. Holy shit, he did it.

He puts one foot on the ground to stand up--and immediately collapses, white hot pain burning the soles of his feet and the tips of his fingers.

_ Oh fuck, _ is the last thing he thinks as he watches his extremities start to dissolve.  _ Margo’s going to be so mad. _


	2. Chapter 2

Eliot’s on high alert the instant he steps into what the Library seems to think is a welcoming place to lay down one's burdens.

When he was thirteen and fourteen, Eliot’s parents used to drive him to a Christian “therapist” in Louisville once a month so she and Eliot could talk about the stack of jizz-covered Men’s Health magazines his parents had found under his mattress and how that made Jesus sad.

_ Her  _ office was less depressing than this one is.

Mauve has its place but this couch is definitely not one of them.

And, dear god, does a giclee print of french doors opening out onto a beach  _ come  _ with one’s LMHC license?

The tall man who’d led Eliot here from the elevator hands him a steaming mug of tea that he didn’t ask for and sits down at the desk, facing him.

“Thank you,” Eliot says, smiling politely before holding the mug out and overturning its contents onto the carpet.

One corner of the man’s mouth curls up. “Was that really necessary?” he asks Eliot.

Eliot shrugs. “Maybe not. But I’m petty.”

“Perhaps you’d like something stronger?”

Eliot just barely stops his mouth from curling into a sneer. “No,” he says.

The tall man sighs the virtuous sigh of someone being very patient with someone very stupid. 

“Eliot,” he says, in a deep voice that under different circumstances would make Eliot a bit swooney, “I know you’re probably disappointed that this is happening now. But it is simply your time. That is something you can not control. But what you do have a say in is how you will spend your time in eternity.”

“I’m not staying,” Eliot says.

The man smiles. “You’re not?”

Eliot looks down at his lap so he doesn’t have to watch the growing amusement on the man’s face. “Quentin’s already saved one person from the Underworld. He can do it again.”

“And why would he do that?”

“Listen,” Eliot says, wanting to be anywhere else but in this particular place talking to this particular person about this particular thing right now. “I appreciate your concern for my mental well-being post mortem, but I don’t need a therapist. I just need a place to wait for my friends to come and get me. And directions to the bathroom. And your shower facilities if those are available.” 

“Eliot, this is not a therapy session. You are not here to work through your issues. This is a safe place where, for once, you can tell the whole truth. Here you have the chance to say all the things you ever wanted to say and never did so that you can be free.

“Again, I know you’re not happy to be here, but we’re giving you the rare chance to bypass limbo, because we think you’re ready.”

“And what if I don’t want to tell you anything?” Eliot asks.

“Then you get to stay here in the Underworld indefinitely. Bowling.” The man leans back in his chair, satisfied. A proud smile on his face like he’s just performed the greatest mic drop of all time.

There’s something not entirely human about him. It takes Eliot a minute to put his finger on it: he can’t see anything reflected in the man’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says. “Did you tell me your name?”

The man doesn’t blink. “Hades.”

“Huh,” Eliot says. Honestly, he’s kind of flattered.

Hades leans forward, rests his elbows on his desk. “To get back to what we were discussing earlier: why do you think that Quentin is going to come get you?”

_ Because he loves me _ , Eliot thinks. But that’s none of this guy’s fucking business. “Because he is,” Eliot says.

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

Of course Eliot’s not sure. That’s kind of the entire point of this exercise. Quentin could tell Eliot every day for the rest of their lives that he loved him, and Eliot would still never be one hundred percent sure that he wasn’t going to one day just up and decide that he didn’t.

But Eliot looks into the void of Hades’ eyes and says, “He’s going to come for me. And I’m going to wait for him.”

Hades sighs, stands up from his desk, and buttons his suit jacket. “Mr. Waugh,” he says, “at present, I do not have the time or the patience to deal with someone with no view toward the bigger picture and their miniscule place in it. You will stay here for the time being, but rest assured: you will be dealt with.”

Eliot bats his eyelashes in the most exaggerated flirtation he can manage. “You promise?”

-

The Underworld is sort of like Vegas in that it’s crowded with millions of confused, overwhelmed strangers interacting in a place where time doesn’t exist. Except it’s worse because there’s no coke and no Cirque du Soleil and you’re here  _ forever _ .

Otherwise, it’s sort of like a cross between a retirement community and a run-down Dave & Busters filled with games you can only win once. It’s common knowledge that beginner’s luck is the only kind there is down here, but that hasn’t stopped Eliot from returning to the arcade every day for the past three weeks (at least, he thinks that’s how long it’s been) to repeatedly do battle with Galaga.

The high he got from winning it just once had hit harder than any other high he’s ever experienced, including the first time he tried ketamine.

He tries not to dwell too much on exactly what kind of habit he’s feeding with his obsessive behavior.

Around week five he gives the bingo hall a shot and decides that’s much better for the health of his psyche. He finds a table near the back that’s frequented by a group of old queers and now spends most of his days there, drinking terrible coffee and chatting too loudly with his new friends while everyone else in the hall repeatedly shushes them.

Yehonatan is a slim, dark-eyed young man who--probably due to the fact that he’s been down here for over four thousand years--is the only person in the whole of the Underworld who’s allowed to smoke. Today he’s passing his cigarette around the table, letting everyone take a drag while he badgers Eliot into telling them all the story of him and Quentin at the mosaic for the second time this week.

They all gaze at Eliot dreamily as he says, “Turns out Chatwin’s Torrent can’t heal everything. But a week later, I um, finally told him that I was in love with him.” Eliot smiles down at his hands. “So maybe the stories weren’t all bullshit--”

“Bingo!”

They all look up to see a middle-aged woman jump out of her seat.

“Another winner!” says Saint Thomas, like this isn’t something that happens every day. “Please, join me on the stage.”

Charlotte, sitting on Eliot’s left, opens her mouth to say something no-doubt scathing and hilarious as the woman jogs up to the front of the room to collect her prize, and--

The banks of fluorescent lights overhead blink out one by one, all human voices and the hall itself disappearing with them.

Eliot jumps out of his seat, heart thumping in his chest as he calls out into the echoing dark, “Hello?”

“Come do it yourself, then,” he hears, and turns to see Quentin standing on the opposite side of the mosaic from him. He’s wearing the finer-quality Fillorian wool they were able to afford during the orchard’s more productive years, and his hair is about the length it was in his late thirties. It’s woven into two braids running along either side of his head and tied up into a messy bun at the back. The former bit of artistry is Eliot’s doing; the latter is Quentin’s.

Eliot takes in a hitching, shocked breath and his brain buzzes as he inhales magic and opium and the sweet, woody scent of their home. The Fillorian sun beams through the trees, warming his back and catching the dust motes in the air, casting shadows in the crow’s feet at the corners of Quentin’s eyes.

“You heard me,” Quentin says, a smirk twisting his lips. “You’re the farmer. Get your ass over here and do it yourself.”

So many days, years at the mosaic blend beautifully into each other in Eliot’s memories, but he remembers this day in particular. Not because anything extraordinary had happened. It had just been a perfect day in how ordinary it was.

Quentin’s hands and knees are covered in dirt from where he’d been bent over in their garden, spacing out the squash seedlings that had popped up so they didn’t crowd each other. And, like he’d done every year, he’d forgotten to build up a dirt mound to plant them in.

_ You want me to come over there?  _ Eliot remembers himself saying, teasing.

“Yeah, I do,” Quentin says, now, his cheeks coloring.

He’s staring at Eliot like he’s the only thing he wants or has ever wanted. Like Eliot’s perfect.

Because compared to who he is now, this Eliot is. This Eliot never broke Quentin’s heart. This Eliot never--almost irrevocably--fucked up their second chance at happiness.

“You could stay here forever, you know,” says a deep voice to his right.

Eliot turns to see Hades.

“What?” Eliot asks.

“If you chose to move on,” Hades says, “you could stay here for eternity, if that were your wish.”

Eliot’s heart flares with longing.

“We--” Eliot clears his throat of whatever emotion is stuck there, “we were only here for fifty years.”

“And you would relive those fifty years again and again,” Hades explains, “each time as if it were the first.”

Eliot looks back at memory-Quentin, eerily paused in the middle of what he’d been doing.

Eliot thinks of what had happened next. He’d dropped the tiles he’d been holding and prowled towards Quentin. And then he’d brushed past him to lean down and plant one of the seedlings himself, explaining again why the mounding technique was necessary for proper drainage.

Quentin had knelt down to watch him, a hot and heavy presence at his back until finally Eliot had given in and turned around to kiss him. Teddy was away at a friend’s house for the day, so Eliot had carried Quentin over to their outdoor bed. They’d spent the rest of the afternoon there, making love in the open air.

“Doesn’t seem like much of a choice,” Hades says. “Spending eternity playing bingo, or living in paradise with the man you love.”

Eliot aches for him, for the both of them--this Quentin and this Eliot. Not innocent by any means, but free in a way they can’t be in their current reality, always hunted by beasts and monsters and malicious gods.

Eliot takes in Quentin’s smiling face, frozen in a perfect moment. Like a statue.

To stay here forever would be to trade his and Quentin’s future for a memory. A beautiful one, but still, a memory.

_ There are prisons, and then there are prisons. _

“No,” Eliot says.

“No?” Hades asks, surprised.

“No,” Eliot confirms.

Hades grumbles something that Eliot can’t make out, and then he’s back in the bingo hall, surrounded by his friends. They’re making jokes and laughing as if nothing out-of-the-ordinary has happened.

Eliot lowers himself slowly back down onto his chair, feeling queasy.

-

Since there’s no chance of getting a strike or even a spare after you’ve done it once, Eliot and Sam have been coming up with more and more ridiculous ways to throw the bowling ball for each other’s amusement: everything from sliding across the floor on their bellies to practicing their death drops.

Eliot is sure that whatever move Sam just pulled off is impressive. Something no doubt worthy of the little spin and pose they’ve just done.

Eliot knows that he should be clapping, but he’s watching Sam as if from a distance, a fog of despondent thoughts clouding his vision.

Sam takes one look at him, and their arm and their smile both drop at the same time. “Ah, shit,” they say.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says, blinking the thoughts away. “I’m sorry, I’m just--my turn?” he asks, standing and pushing at his rolled-up sleeves.

Sam guides Eliot back down onto the bench with a gentle hand in the center of his chest, and then they drape all six-feet-five-inches of their frame onto the bench next to him.

“I’m not having my game ruined by whatever’s going on in there,” they say, pointing to Eliot’s forehead. “C’mon. Better out than in.”

Eliot takes a deep, hitching breath. His words trip over each other on their way out of his mouth. “It’s been almost three months. What if he  _ can’t  _ come get me for some reason? What if he can’t find me? What if something’s happened? What if--”

“Baby, breathe,” Sam says.

“Do you think there’s a way out? Should I go find him?” Eliot’s eyes dart around the bowling alley like there might be an answer if he just looks in the right place. “There has to be a way out, right?”

Sam shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Really?” Eliot asks.

“The last time I was in my body it was riddled with cancer. What would I go back to?” Sam folds their long fingers together on top of their lap. “I had my time. Seventy-six years is a good run.”

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees. It was a good run for him. Of course, he would have taken a few more years, would have taken all the years he could get with Quentin.

A small smile passes over Sam’s face. “I might know someone you can talk to about escaping.”

“Yeah?” Eliot asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Elvis.”

“Elvis,” Eliot says, flat.

“He lives on one of the outer Hawaiian islands.”

“Of course he does.”

“He breaks out of here at least once a month,” Sam says, ignoring Eliot’s scepticism. “Charlotte’s got an in with him. Maybe we can go visit.”

It’s not the oddest proposal anyone’s ever made to Eliot. In his world, help comes from the strangest of places.

“If nothing else, do it for me,” Sam adds. “I need a change of scenery.”

Eliot wouldn’t mind getting out from underneath this horrible lighting, seeing the sun, maybe lying on a beach somewhere....

He exhales, some of the tension leaving his body. “That does sound nice,” he says.

“You know what else is nice?” Sam asks.

“What?” Eliot asks.

“Beating you at bowling,” Sam says, deadly serious.

Eliot laughs. Sam has to be the most competitive person Eliot has ever met, and that’s including Margo.

“Go on,” Sam says, leaning back on the bench. They nod toward the lane. “I want to see how far back you can drop that leg.”

On his next throw, Eliot’s ball knocks over all but three pins, which is pretty much a strike in a game that doesn’t play fair.

From their seat on the bench, Sam deigns to clap politely for him.

Eliot laughs from where he’s laid out almost sideways on the floor, his leg fully extended behind him. He’s pulling himself back up to his full height and dusting himself off when--

All the lights in the bowling alley shut off at once, leaving him in the pitch dark.

_ Ah, shit, _ he thinks.  _ Here we go again. _

And then all the lights flash on again, brighter than before and much warmer. As if someone has cracked open the roof and let sunlight into the hall for the first time in millennia. An oppressive presence is suddenly gone, one that Eliot wouldn’t have known was there before its absence.

Something in the air has shifted--this is a disturbance, not an interlude--and Eliot knows suddenly that this is his chance.

He needs to get to the elevator banks. Now.

He turns to Sam who’s--already back at the ball return, considering their options. 

“Sam,” Eliot says.

Sam startles, caught out. “What?”

“I, um--I have to go.”

“I know,” Sam says, like Eliot’s just said something so obvious that it’s stupid. “What, you need my permission?”

Eliot smiles at them, and then he turns and runs toward the entrance, Sam calling after him, “I expect to meet this young man the next time you’re down here.”

When Eliot gets out into the hall there are other people milling around, talking amongst themselves about what just happened. Eliot dashes past them and makes a right turn into the next hallway, left at the end of that one, and right again at the end of that one. He knows how to get to the closest elevator bank, but he doesn’t remember it being so far away. The corridors seem to get longer as he runs.

He’s starting to wonder if maybe he made a wrong turn--if maybe he should turn around--when a figure appears at the end of the hallway he’s running down.

Eliot freezes.

He’d know that stumbling walk, the curve of those shoulders, in any world. In any lifetime.

Quentin stares at him for a moment, equally shaken. And then his face crumples and he rasps, “Eliot,” the name torn out of his throat. He’s thinner than he was the last time Eliot saw him. His shoulders are a little too hunched and his eyes are a little too wide, the skin underneath them hollow and purpling.

“Q,” Eliot says, his breath hitching.

And then Quentin is charging toward him, his expression hardening as he gets closer and-- _ oh _ . Oh, shit. He’s so mad.

“ _ Ass _ hole,” he growls.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says. “Baby, I’m so sorry--”

Quentin fists his hands into Eliot’s shirt and pulls him down to kiss him fiercely. Eliot sways forward into him, helpless. He tilts his head and breathes out hard against Quentin’s cheek, wraps a hand around the back of his neck.

Quentin’s mouth opens under his and he lets out a high-pitched, desperate sound--

And then he’s pulling back and whining, “Fuck.”

He pushes Eliot away gently, stands back on his heels and mutters, “Fucking asshole,” his voice choked.

“Sweetheart…” Eliot tries again, reaching for him, but Quentin just steps back farther.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he says, not looking at Eliot.

He pulls a chain off from around his neck, unfastens the clasp and lets the ring that’s hanging on it drop into his palm. It’s an exact copy of the moonstone ring Margo gave to Eliot at the end of their first year at Brakebills. The same one that--Eliot looks down at his right hand to see that he’s no longer wearing it. Huh.

Quentin takes Eliot’s hand and slides the ring onto his middle finger. He doesn’t look at Eliot as he talks, his voice still rough as he says, “Here. You’ll need this to--”

“Q,” Eliot says in warning, putting a hand on Quentin’s arm and stepping forward between him and the figure that’s just appeared at the end of the hallway. It rushes towards them in an aggressive stomp, and it-- _ she, _ Eliot thinks--has her arms wrapped around her chest, squeezing something against it.

Eliot thinks of a shy, angry first year that he once tried to befriend. She even  _ looks  _ like--

“Alice?”

It’s her. It’s definitely her, except her skin and her hair is grey and she’s wearing some god-awful fantasy cosplay that consists of sewn-together scraps of fabric.

Exactly how many plot developments has Eliot missed while he’s been gone?

Alice doesn’t stop moving until she’s right in front of Eliot, causing him to wonder for a moment if she's going to slam right into him. The look on her face indicates that she’s considering it.

She shoves the two books she’s carrying against his chest. “Don’t drop those,” she says as she steps back.

Eliot doesn’t have the first clue what to say, so he doesn’t say anything, just nods dumbly and does as she says.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Quentin asks her, curling a hand around Eliot’s elbow.

She doesn’t look at Quentin as her hands move swiftly through a spell that builds a small ball of white light between her palms. It grows in intermittent pulses as she works.

“I’ve got unfinished business down here,” she says.

Quentin keeps trying to catch her eyes. “Alice--”

At that she looks at him, her face impassive. If she weren’t shorter than Quentin, Eliot would almost say she was looking down her nose at him. The ball of light between her hands glows brighter, as if it’s absorbing her vexation.

“I want my Cranberries CDs back,” she says, and then she claps her hands together-- 

Eliot gasps, jolting upright.

The world around him is nothing but an over-saturated blur for a few, panic-inducing seconds before he finally blinks it into focus.

He’s lying on the floor of the lab at Brakebills, and Penny and Kady and Julia are all standing in a half circle around him, watching and waiting. He registers the sensation of two small, soft hands clasping one of his--

“Eliot?” Margo’s voice cuts through the silence, and--oh god--that wobble in her voice. It’s Eliot’s least favorite sound in the world. He’s only ever heard it once before, and he never wants to hear it again for as long as he lives.

She’s crouched down on the floor next to him, wearing that marigold-yellow blouse that does  _ amazing  _ things for her complexion. Her mouth trembles and unshed tears pool in the corners of her eyes. Few people but Eliot could tell that her hair hasn’t been styled recently and her makeup has been hastily applied. She hasn’t slept in a couple of days.

“Bambi,” Eliot says, his unused voice a barely-audible squeak. He reaches up to gently cup her face in his palm, careful not to smudge her contouring.

Margo nuzzles into his hand, lets out a wet laugh that hitches into a deep, relieved exhale. “Hey, asshole,” she says. “Welcome back.”

Eliot smiles, the muscles of his face taking a minute to get with the program. “What did I miss?”

“We’ll do an episode recap later,” Margo assures him. “How do you feel?”

Eliot takes stock of his body. He feels--as good as can be expected after having just come back from the dead. A bit cold, a bit achy. He registers a hand on his left thigh, its fingers digging into his skin, and Eliot looks over to see--

“Q.”

“Hey,” Quentin says. He looks just as wrung out as he did in the Underworld, his lips twitching like he’s just barely holding it together. “You okay?”

Eliot nods, says, “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” Quentin says, nodding. “Good.”

Someone approaches to drape a blanket over Eliot’s shoulders and place a bottle of Gatorade in front of him. Quentin shifts back and away, and then he stands up to walk to the other side of the room. He leans against a desk with his arms folded in front of his chest and his lips pressed together, silent while everyone else talks.

However unintentionally, Eliot did manage to do one thing right: The librarian that he killed with Glezos’ Mirror was a man named Everett who’d been Irene McAllister’s prospective partner in world domination.

Irene’s body has been taken over by the Monster that Eliot shot in Blackspire. It’s already killed several gods (including Persephone) and is still on the loose, trying to build a body for its sister.

They’ve got their work cut out for them, and Eliot has a million questions about that, but what he needs to know first is--

“My body,” he says, looking down at his hands. “Clay?”

“No, it’s yours,” Kady says. “Quentin and Margo forced Penny to travel them back into the Library so they could pull you out.”

Eliot’s jaw clenches and he looks up at Quentin.

Quentin is looking away, pointedly ignoring whatever judgement Eliot is trying to throw at him.

Margo says, “I froze you so we could reanimate you later. Like Walt Disney.”

“But I was--” Eliot takes a deep breath. “When I died I’d started to--”

“I put you back together,” Quentin says, and Eliot looks up at him.

“What?” he says.

Quentin’s jaw works as he speaks, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I put you back together,” he says, his voice unsteady. “I don’t really know how or why I was able to do it, but…I did.”

Everyone else in the room is silent, staring down at the floor.

Eliot looks at them each in turn and asks, “Could Q and I have the room for a minute?” When his eyes land on Margo, she nods and stands to give him a hand up.

Before she takes her leave, she presses up on her toes to kiss Eliot’s cheek. “You got this,” she says quietly in his ear.

Eliot nods in obeisance, catches her fingers in his hand and squeezes them gently before she goes.

As soon as everyone’s gone, Quentin finally speaks, still not looking at Eliot.

“I was thinking we could, um, go for a walk. Around campus,” he says.

“Q--”

“Julia said you should be active for at least 60 minutes after your body’s woken up--”

“Q--”

“What?” Quentin snaps, finally looking up at him.

Eliot opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. All he has are the same useless words he keeps repeating. “I’m sorry.”

Quentin laughs. “He’s sorry….”

“I didn’t--I wasn’t trying to--”

“What you were trying to do doesn’t really matter if the end result is the same, does it?”

“What do you want me to say, Quentin? I’m not going to feed you any bullshit like ‘There was no other way,’ because maybe there was. Maybe I just couldn’t think beyond the fact that you were going to die if I didn’t do something.”

“Eliot, I  _ love  _ you. But I can’t  _ do that _ \--I can’t--” He glances up at the ceiling, as if looking for strength. When he finds none there, he looks at Eliot, near pleading when he says, “Please don’t make me do this without you.”

“You won’t have to,” Eliot says.

“You don’t know that,” Quentin counters.

“Of course I don’t. We’re Magicians, Q. This shit is dangerous. But if you want to give it a shot with me, then that’s what it means.

“Maybe the Eliot that was at the mosaic with you was safe and reliable, and maybe I’m him, but maybe I’m not. Maybe that Eliot just chilled the fuck out after a year of not having to deal with the truly  _ stupid  _ amount of bullshit we do on a daily basis.

“But _ I  _ want to give it a shot with you. Me.  _ I _ do. Not the other version of me. And this version of me--the one that might go with the nuclear option when he’s trying to save your life--he belongs to you.”

Quentin is staring up at him, lip clamped between his teeth and eyebrows pinched together, wary but hopeful.

Eliot steps towards him, hands out and palms open. “I’m in love with you. And I wish I had something more to offer you than who I am right now. But I don’t. I’m sorry.”

It’s by far the worst offer Eliot has ever made to anyone. Quentin would be crazy to accept it.

But Quentin says, “Eliot,” in the same soft way that he always does, like nothing and everything has changed. He steps forward, and Eliot meets him halfway, ducking down as Quentin pushes up on his toes to kiss him.

-

The last time Eliot was in his bedroom in the Cottage, he was getting ready to leave for Blackspire.

He and Margo had been up the whole night, pacing beneath the eaves, planning how they were going to save Quentin from the Monster. There’s still an ashtray stuffed with their cigarette butts on Eliot’s desk. 

The same desk that Quentin’s standing next to now. By some miraculous turn of events, he’s here--not trapped in a dungeon for the next thousand years--but here, looking up at Eliot like he can’t believe what he’s seeing either.

He fidgets, fists clenching at his sides, chest rising and falling with his rapid breaths as Eliot stands over him and fits his knuckles under Quentin’s chin. Quentin gasps into the kiss, his mouth opening beneath Eliot’s and their tongues curling together as soon as their lips meet.

Eliot slides his hands up underneath Quentin’s t-shirt, soft cotton at the back of his hands and warm muscle in his palms. He digs his fingers in, near tearing at skin as their lips slide against each other, wet and desperate.

Quentin’s fingers fiddle with the knot on Eliot’s tie, and when he can’t manage to loosen it, he starts shoving at Eliot’s jacket, growls, “Get this  _ off _ .”

Eliot shrugs out of it and pulls his tie off for good measure, tosses both of them across the room without looking to see where they land so he can keep kissing Quentin.

Quentin’s hands shake as he undoes the top two buttons of Eliot’s shirt. As soon as they’re open, Quentin pulls away from Eliot’s lips to press his face into the dip at the base of his throat. He breathes in and exhales hard against Eliot’s sternum, chokes out, “You’re alive.”

Of course Eliot’s alive. Nothing in this world or any other could keep them apart indefinitely.

Eliot takes Quentin’s face in his hands and looks into his eyes, needing him to understand. “I would’ve waited for you forever,” he says.

Quentin’s eyelids fall shut and he whimpers, “Eliot.”

And then Quentin’s kissing him again, pulling Eliot down to his level by the back of his neck.

Desire knocks the breath out of Eliot’s lungs in a pained moan as he falls forward against Quentin, one arm strapped around his waist and the other slapping against the desk at Quentin’s back as they start to rut against each other. They breathe out hard against each other’s mouths, bristly chins chafing each other’s lips as they press against and grab at each other, cupping each other’s cocks through their pants.

Eliot’s mouth starts to water and his brain fizz with how much he suddenly needs to suck Quentin off. His hands tremble as he unfastens and unzips Quentin’s jeans, yanking them down Quentin’s thighs along with his boxers as he falls to his knees.

“Oh god,” Quentin chokes out. His palms cup the back of Eliot’s head as Eliot nuzzles into the hairy crease between Quentin’s thigh and his pelvis, needing into all the hot, hidden parts of him. The feel of his coarse hair and soft skin against Eliot’s mouth, the smell and the taste of him, is a familiar thread that runs through a thousand erotic memories. It sets Eliot’s blood on fire, makes his dick hard.

He doesn’t even bother to pull Quentin’s pants down past his knees, just takes Quentin’s cock into his mouth, the glans rubbing against his soft palate as it fattens on his tongue.

Quentin lets out a high-pitched  _ huh  _ like he’s just had the wind knocked out of him, his stomach going concave under Eliot’s hand where it’s pressed to his belly.

Eliot moans, wraps his lips tight around Quentin’s shaft as he bobs his head. Saliva pools behind his teeth, easing the way for Quentin’s cock as it throbs and hardens, gliding farther towards the back of his throat.

The two of them love a sloppy blowjob--both giving one and getting one--so Eliot gets Quentin’s dick nice and wet, spit leaking out of his mouth and down his chin where it’s pressed against Quentin’s balls.

He looks up to see Quentin staring down at him, eyes and mouth opened wide in shocked desire, panting as he thrusts helplessly into Eliot’s mouth. His t-shirt is still on, and he’s got the hand not wrapped around the back of Eliot’s head up under his shirt, playing with his nipples.

Eliot reaches up to cup Quentin’s balls in his palm, his fingertips brushing against his perineum, and then his asshole. Quentin lets out a shocked gasp, his cock pulsing and spilling pre-come onto Eliot’s tongue, and god _ damn _ . Eliot needs fucking  _ inside of him _ .

Eliot stares up into Quentin’s eyes, hoping his pleading look communicates his question as he rubs a fingertip against the furled muscle.

“Fuck yes,” Quentin gasps, shuddering.

Eliot pulls off and falls back on his heels. He licks his lips, not bothering to wipe the wetness, the taste of Quentin off his mouth. “Turn around, baby,” he says, desperate, pressing the heel of his hand against his own cock.

Quentin spins around. He leans forward with one hand on Eliot’s desk, reaches the other back to spread himself open, and  _ fuck _ . Eliot can’t even fathom how he got this lucky. The way this stubborn, prickly man opens the softest parts of himself to Eliot’s touch. Just completely surrenders. Eliot  _ worships  _ him.

Sweat beads at the small of Quentin’s back, makes the insides of his thighs warm and sticky as Eliot runs his hands up them. The light fuzz covering Quentin’s ass is soft in Eliot’s palms, his hands spanning the curve from the small of Quentin’s back to the tops of his thighs.

Eliot nudges Quentin’s hands aside so he can hold him open himself. He reaches a thumb in to just pet him for a moment, to admire the way Quentin’s skin ripples and flushes as he shudders, letting Eliot see this soft, private place that belongs only to the two of them. 

Quentin always loses it when Eliot strokes him with slow, light touches here, so that’s how he starts out, leaning in to lap gently at Quentin’s hole. Quentin stands stock still, his muscles rigid except for the little involuntary twitches in his back and thighs. He has his t-shirt bunched up in his fist, pulled up and out of the way so Eliot can work. He gasps, pushing up on his toes a little every time Eliot licks at his hole, almost like it’s too much. Eliot forgot just how sensitive he is here.

Eliot pulls back to press gentle kisses to the small of kiss back, his hip, the soft, warm skin of his ass under Eliot’s palms.  _ Relax _ , he thinks, pressing every thought into Quentin’s skin with his lips. _ It’s just me. It’s just us. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. _

Quentin takes a deep breath and then exhales slowly, relaxing a little under Eliot’s mouth and his hands.

“You okay?” Eliot asks, kneading the backs of Quentin’s thighs. 

“Fucking amazing,” Quentin says, deep and raspy.

“It’s okay if you come, baby,” Eliot assures him.

Quentin seems to relax a little at that, just hearing that he has permission. A rough laugh shakes out of his chest. “I might.”

“Do you want me to stop?” Eliot asks.

“Fuck, no,” Quentin says. He looks over his shoulder at Eliot, his smile fond and a little impish when he says, “Harder, actually? I still might come, I just--it feels--I’m a little too keyed up for the other way?”

And Eliot gets that, how certain types of stimulation can flip to overstimulation depending on your capacity for it in the moment.

Eliot smiles back up at him, and for a second they’re just staring at each other, grinning dopily like a couple of idiots. God, Eliot loves him.

He runs a gentle hand up and down Quentin’s back, kisses his spine, and says, “As you wish.”

He presses a quick kiss to Quentin’s hole--just because he feels like it--and then he leans in and glides the flat of his tongue across it slowly, letting his taste buds catch on Quentin’s rim. 

Quentin’s head falls backwards on his shoulders and he opens his throat to let out a long moan. His back bows as he slowly grinds on Eliot’s tongue.

“Fuck, Eliot,” he whines. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”

And Eliot wasn’t planning to, not when Quentin tastes and feels as good as he does. He burrows in, nose pressed to the small of Quentin’s back as he strokes his asshole with his tongue over and over and over and  _ over _ . Until Quentin is a panting, groaning, sweating mess. He reaches one arm back to bury his fingers in Eliot’s curls as his hips twitch in little pulses, pushing into the stimulation.

The need to be inside of him is a searing heat low in Eliot’s belly, and Eliot points his tongue to penetrate him, wriggling the tip through the clenching muscle.

Quentin opens to him, moaning, “Fuck yes,” as Eliot slides his tongue in and out. He makes these desperate, guttural sounds as Eliot fucks him, his insides soft and wet and clenching around Eliot’s tongue. 

The cotton and wool hugging Eliot’s arms and chest is suddenly too tight, and he quickly--as quick as he can with his hands trembling--pops open the buttons of his shirt and shrugs out of it, undoes his belt buckle and opens his pants.

The sound catches Quentin’s attention, and he looks back over his shoulder just as Eliot pulls his cock out of his briefs and starts stroking himself. Eliot looks up, meeting Quentin’s eyes as he thrusts his tongue into him again and again. He wants Quentin to see what he does to him. Wants Quentin to see how hard he makes him. Wants Quentin to see him fucking his own fist because he can’t help himself. 

“Oh fuck,” Quentin says, and it sounds like a warning. “Get the fuck up here.”

Eliot slides Quentin’s shirt off over his head when he comes back up, pulling Quentin’s body against his front and pressing wet kisses to his neck. He shakes the already loose elastic out of his hair and tosses it away, wraps an arm around Quentin’s chest and mouths at his jaw as he reaches down to stroke his cock, half out of his mind with need, greedy for his skin.

Quentin’s breath hitches and he grabs onto Eliot’s arm where it’s strapped across his chest. Their bare chests both heave, almost in-sync as he fucks up into Eliot’s hand.

“Eliot,” Quentin says, high-pitched and desperate, “I want you--want you inside me.”

Eliot moans, “Fuck. I want that too.”

Quentin groans and his head falls back on Eliot’s shoulder. He throws his hand out towards Eliot’s bedside table, seemingly with the goal of telekinetically grabbing his sex supplies. He succeeds only in toppling the entire thing over.

Eliot chuckles. “Come on, baby,” he says. “Let’s get you lying down.”

They’re both bare from the waist up but have to kick off their shoes and hop out of their pants to get naked. It’s like an elaborate mating dance, the two of them shaking their feet and then almost knocking their heads together when they both bend over at the same time to pull their pants off their ankles.

They giggle as they step into each other’s arms, their sense of urgency gone for a moment as they press their foreheads together.

“Hey,” Eliot says.

“Hi,” Quentin says, smiling wide enough to dimple as he lays back on the mattress, guiding Eliot to hover over him. From seemingly nowhere, he produces Eliot’s half-empty bottle of lube.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says, looking between it and the knocked over bedside table where it usually resides. “Where did you get that?”

Quentin wiggles his fingers. “The first trick to sleight of hand is distraction.”

Eliot says, in all seriousness, “I’m never letting you touch my dick again.”

Quentin snorts as he squirts lube into his palm and takes Eliot’s hand. Once Eliot’s fingers are nice and slick, he leans down to kiss Quentin, reaches between his legs to where he’s still wet from Eliot’s mouth.

Quentin’s thighs fall open, and he lets out a satisfied sigh as Eliot presses two fingers inside, his beautiful body yielding to Eliot’s touch.

Eliot props himself up on his hand so he can watch Quentin’s face, and he looks down to find Quentin already staring up at him, eyes black and eyebrows pressed together, his mouth hanging open like he’s shocked by how good he feels. His flushed chest heaves in time with the slide of Eliot’s fingers in and out of his body, and his nipples are so hard they must ache.

Eliot leans down to rub the flat of his tongue against them, kiss them, gently pinch them between his incisors. He knows he’s done something right when Quentin shudders beneath him, his hands coming up to wrap around the crown of Eliot’s head.

He lets out a constant stream of deep-throated, satisfied exhalations as Eliot fingers him, his hands restless on Eliot’s skin. They comb through Eliot’s sweaty curls, slide across his shoulders and down his back, move down Eliot’s arm to feel his muscles move as he works Quentin open.

Eliot presses wet kisses to Quentin’s chest, his stubbled throat and his jaw. Quentin whines and nudges his face against Eliot’s, kissing his mouth as he reaches down to guide three of Eliot’s fingers inside. He lets out a long drawn-out moan, and his thighs clench for a moment before falling further open, taking it, taking everything Eliot has to give him.

By the time he’s four fingers deep, Eliot is undone. He presses his forehead to Quentin’s sternum as he fucks his fingers faster, unable to stop, imagining the slick clutch of Quentin’s asshole sliding up and down his cock.

He grinds helplessly against the back of Quentin’s thigh as he whimpers, “Fuck, baby, you take it so good.”

“ _ Well _ ,” Quentin says immediately.

“What?” Eliot blinks up at him dumbly.

“It’s ‘well,’” Quentin says, looking as smug as a man can with four fingers in his ass. “I take it so  _ well _ .”

And Eliot loses it. He collapses on top of Quentin in a heap of loud, barking laughter, Quentin’s quiet honks setting him off again every time he thinks he’s calmed down. He laughs until he can’t breathe and his stomach hurts, until they’re both shaking the bed with it. Until Eliot’s fingers in Quentin’s ass shift a certain way, causing Quentin to gasp, legs tightening around Eliot’s hips as Eliot’s name falls out of his mouth in a long, desirous moan. 

Eliot’s breath hitches and he shudders, curling up against Quentin’s chest. “Q, fuck. Please.”

“I’m ready,” Quentin says immediately. “It’s okay, baby, I’m ready.”

When Eliot withdraws his fingers, Quentin turns away from him, looks back at Eliot over his shoulder, eyes glassy and half-lidded. “Like this,” he says.

He’s gorgeous spread out like this, flushed across his neck and lower back. The muscles in between his shoulder blades shifting beneath his tattoo. The clearly defined dip where his spine is leading Eliot’s eyes down to the swell of his ass.

Eliot is hit suddenly with a series of memories, his gut tightening as he recalls that this is how Quentin likes to be fucked. In this position he has little leverage. He can’t buck up against Eliot like he can when he’s on his back, can’t grind back on his dick like he can when he’s on his knees. His pleasure is almost completely in Eliot’s hands. It’s trust so complete it makes Eliot breathless.

One hand on Quentin’s hip, Eliot tucks himself up against the curve of Quentin’s body, slides his arm underneath his neck so they’re pressed together, back to chest, ass to cock. Quentin leans back to rest his head on Eliot’s bicep, smiles and tilts his chin up for a kiss that Eliot happily gives him. They make out slow and sticky, Eliot scratching his fingers through the hair on Quentin’s chest, his belly.

Eliot thrusts his hips lazily, pushing his cock up into the crease between Quentin’s thigh and balls. They both gasp when their cocks brush together. Eliot is big enough that his curves right up alongside Quentin’s, their glans catching against each other.

Eliot spits into his hand, and they both look down so they can watch, foreheads pressed together, the two of them moaning as Eliot wraps his hand around them both. He strokes them together, watches as pre-come pearls at the tips of their dicks. Eliot gathers it in his palm, uses it to make his already slick fist even wetter.

_ Fuck  _ Eliot could come like this. He wants to come like this. Wants to come with Quentin, on him, in him, on his knees in front of him. Wants to make Quentin come until he screams, twitching from oversensitivity. The image has him squeezing his fingers around the base of both their cocks. He clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck,” he says voice deep and rough.

“I know,” Quentin says, almost laughs. “Gonna make me come before you even get inside me.” He presses a quick kiss to Eliot’s temple and says, “Here. Let me see that big, beautiful dick.”

“Jesus, Q,” Eliot says as Quentin rolls the condom (also produced from seemingly nowhere) down onto his cock.

Quentin reaches his arm out alongside Eliot’s where it’s threaded behind his neck, laces their fingers together and holds on tight while he uses his other hand to guide the tip of Eliot’s cock to where he’s wet and open.

“Slow, baby,” Eliot gasps. “You haven’t taken me in this body before.” He strokes his free hand up and down Quentin’s chest, reminding him to breathe, reminding himself to breathe as he pushes inside.

Quentin’s hand clenches where their fingers are locked together on the mattress and he moans, “Eliot,” as he bears down. The room is silent for a moment as they push against each other, and then the swollen head of Eliot’s cock pops in and they both gasp, that first ring of muscle clenching around Eliot’s cock.

“Fuck, Q,” Eliot pants. He shakes with want, his palms sweaty and fingers twitching as they skate across Quentin’s skin, not knowing where to land.

He presses his forehead to the side of Quentin’s, says, “Do you-- Do you remember the first time?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Quentin says immediately, raw and almost begging as he reaches up to take a handful of Eliot’s hair in his fist, not pulling, just holding on as he opens up to let him inside. He pushes his ass down onto Eliot’s dick, slow but unrelenting. “ _ Oh _ . Eliot.”

“I was--I wanted you so bad.”

“God, me too. Pulled you-- pulled you between my legs,” Quentin says.

“Rubbed our cocks together until we came,” Eliot says.

“Oh, fuck,” Quentin whimpers as Eliot slides in another inch.

His mouth is so close, and Eliot has to kiss him, cradling Quentin’s head against his bicep as they take wet, hungry pulls from each other’s lips.

“Our wedding night,” Quentin murmurs against his mouth. “In Chatwin’s Torrent.”

“Next to Chatwin’s Torrent,” Eliot reminds him. “I wasn’t going to fuck you in Chatwin’s Torrent. The River Watcher would have had our heads.”

Quentin chuckles, and Eliot slides in the last inch. They both gasp out a desperate, relieved exhale, their lips glancing against each other. Quentin is wrapped around every inch of his cock, their balls drawn up tight where they’re pressed together.

“God, Quentin.” Eliot shakes as he holds himself back, as he lets Quentin adjust to his girth. He wants to be good for Quentin, wants Quentin to feel as safe and cared for and fucking amazing as he feels right now.

“Slow,” Quentin instructs him when he’s ready, fingertips landing gently on Eliot’s thigh. “Slow, I wanna feel you.”

Eliot squeezes Quentin’s hand in his as he draws out and thrusts back in slowly, letting him feel every inch, feel how deep he is. Their eyes lock on each other’s, hooded and blinking hard against the drugging pleasure as Eliot slides achingly slow out and in, out and in, out and in in  _ in _ , never deep enough.

“Fuck, Eliot,” Quentin moans, his voice dripping with satisfaction. “You feel so fucking good.”

His ass rubs against Eliot’s pelvis as his hips move in helpless little jerks, urging Eliot to move faster. Eliot bites at his shoulder, cradles Quentin’s thigh in one hand and holds his leg bent up in the air so he can open him wider and fuck him deeper.

Quentin breathes out  _ fuck  _ and  _ Eliot  _ in a repeating chant, like just saying his name is an erotic experience. It must be, because for Eliot it feels the same.

_ God, Q _ when he pulls halfway out to dribble more lube on his cock with one trembling hand. A high-pitched, pained whine of  _ Quentin  _ when he thrusts back in, Quentin moaning and pressing kisses to his face in comfort and understanding.  _ Quentin _ , again, running his slick hand up and down the pale inside of Quentin’s thigh. He reaches down to gently fist his cock, leaking so much pre-come it drips down his shaft and onto the bed sheets.

“Fuck, you’re so wet. Always get so wet for me,” Eliot says as he skims his palm up Quentin’s stomach and chest, rubbing his come into his skin. It used to embarrass Quentin, the number of blankets and quilts and sheets that they ruined over the years. But it drives Eliot crazy.

“Just for you. God, Eliot,” Quentin breathes, “You’re so fucking good.” His head falls back onto Eliot’s shoulder, baring his throat as he rides his rhythm, Eliot’s cock pushing the breath out of him in soft  _ hah hah hah _ s with every hard thrust inside his body.

He pants with his mouth open, as lost in it as Eliot is, shivering and breaking out in goosebumps wherever Eliot touches him. Sweat drips down his temples and out of his armpits. It shakes off of Eliot’s curls and falls on his chest, his neck. 

Eliot speeds up, helpless in the clutch of Quentin’s body, grunting as their skin slaps together. 

He must hit something right because Quentin shudders dramatically, the muscles in his chest and back rippling against Eliot’s skin. His eyes slam shut and his ass clenches around Eliot’s cock as he lets out a long, trembling keen. He wraps his leg around the back of Eliot’s, giving himself just enough leverage to pump his hips, pushing Eliot’s pelvis almost flush with the mattress as he fucks himself on Eliot’s cock.

Eliot surges forward, their torsos twisting together as he locks Quentin’s head in the crook of his elbow and kisses him, all tongues and desperate breaths as Quentin bounces in his lap. He’s reaching down to fist Quentin’s cock when Quentin grabs his hand and brings it back up his chest to his nipples, guides Eliot through the motions of squeezing and twisting them between his thumb and forefinger.

“Just like that. Oh, god, Eliot.” Quentin’s voice jumps up and down in pitch, shuddering as his rhythm starts to fall apart.

Eliot moans and drops his head down, rubs his forehead against Quentin’s collarbones, high out of his mind on this feeling, the warm slick grip of Quentin’s ass as it pulses around his cock, his skin burning as he falls apart in Eliot’s arms. Eliot gets both of his legs underneath Quentin’s and fucks up into him as hard and as fast as he can, taking up Quentin’s rhythm.

Forget being High King. Fucking Quentin makes Eliot feel like the most powerful man alive. That he can give him this much pleasure with just this body, that he can make him happy, make him come. No magic on this earth or any other feels this good.

“Oh, fuck,” Quentin says, “M’gonna-- Eliot, m’gonna come.”

Eliot sobs, “F-- _ fuck _ , Quentin. Me too. Oh, god.” 

“Come inside me,” Quentin begs him, voice breaking. “Oh.” He jerks against Eliot, balls drawing up tight. “Fuck. Fuck. _Eliot_ ,” he wails, so loud that the rest of the cottage has to hear him. His hand flies out to fist the bedsheet, mouth open in silent shock as his cock jerks and spurts across his belly, untouched, only bringing his hand down at the last second to stroke himself through it.

Eliot’s vision blurs and his ears ring as he pumps his hips wildly, his thighs and his abs and his balls throbbing as he thrusts up one final time and comes deep inside of Quentin, the only noise passing his lips great hiccuping sobs as he’s wracked by convulsions of pleasure.

They cling to each other, shuddering hard enough to shake the bed as they fuck each other through it.

Eliot emerges from the fog of orgasm to Quentin kissing his face, sighing happily.

“Did I do good?” Eliot slurs, and then when he remembers, “Sorry. Did I do  _ well _ ?”

Quentin laughs brightly, and Eliot can feel it where he’s still buried inside him.

“Yeah, baby,” Quentin says. “Yeah, you did real good.”

-

When Eliot wakes, he’s alone in bed. The sky outside his windows is dark, but there’s a warm pocket of light in the corner of his room where his desk is. Quentin sits at it, watching Eliot wake up, his eyes soft. When he catches Eliot looking back at him, he lifts his chin just a touch and the corners of his mouth tilt up. Eliot would almost say he looks smug, to be looking at Eliot like this--naked and post-coital.

Eliot lets himself bask in it for a moment, stretching his limbs out to full extension under Quentin’s possessive gaze. The sheets he’s been wrapped up in slip off his chest and pool around his hips, and Quentin’s eyes follow them, running up and down Eliot’s body hotly.

“Hello, my love,” Eliot says, settling back into the mattress with a satisfied sigh.

“Hey,” Quentin says, his voice deep and warm. He’s wearing his little blue boxer briefs and an old, soft t-shirt, his hair tied up in a bun. He looks better than he did just a couple of hours ago, less wild around the eyes and complexion warmer.

“Why are you up?” Eliot asks. He reaches his arm out towards him, making a grabbing motion with his hand. “Come back to bed, Q. You need to sleep.”

Quentin smiles. “I just slept for eighteen hours,” he says.

“What?” Eliot asks.

Quentin’s smile widens. “Eliot, you’ve been asleep for almost twenty-four hours.”

“Huh.” That would explain why he feels so well-rested.

“You feel alright?” Quentin asks. “You hungry?”

Eliot thinks for a minute before he realizes, “I’m starving.”

Quentin chuckles. “C’mere,” he says. “There’s something I want to show you first.”

Eliot groans and slides out of bed, achy in all the good places. He grabs one of the robes hanging behind his door and throws it on.

Because Quentin can’t sit in a chair properly, Eliot’s able to slide up behind him on the seat. He rests his chin on Quentin’s shoulder, wraps his arms around his middle.

In front of Quentin, Eliot’s desk is littered with what look like magicked facsimiles of ancient documents. Scrolls and manuscripts and census rolls. Eliot recognizes Ember’s seal on a few of them.

“Where did you get these?” he asks Quentin.

“There’s an armory in Blackspire,” Quentin says, stroking Eliot’s bare thigh as he speaks. “They hid a bunch of court documents in there when the Beast came to Fillory, knowing that no one would look there.” He pulls a page out of the pile, points to a paragraph about halfway down it. “Here,” he says. “Read that.”

Eliot clears his throat and reads aloud, “The mural in the Queen’s chambers was completed in the year five-thousand and thirty-one A.E.U. The muralist was Arielle Fenik--”

Eliot draws his head off of Q’s shoulder to find that Quentin is staring back at him, smiling. “Keep reading,” he says.

Eliot looks back down at the page, picks up where he left off. “The muralist was Arielle Fenik. She was assisted by the members of her workshop, including her son and protege, Theodore Rupert Fenik.”

Eliot gasps in a breath. “Q--”

“I know.”

“How--”

“I don’t know,” Quentin says, his voice tinged with pleased wonder.

“But we weren’t there,” Eliot says.

“Not technically,” Quentin says. “But look at this.” He brings up a thick stack of pages, all clipped together. “This is the Fillorian census for the area where our cottage was. See?” He points to the place name listed in the far left column on the page.

“Puzzle Cottage,” Eliot reads. He watches Quentin’s finger as it slides to the right, to two conspicuously blank spaces where the resident’s names should be listed.

“They don’t leave blank spaces in the Fillorian census,” Quentin says. “If you look through them, every empty space is filled with notes, even in the margins. People even go back and write notes  _ on top of _ the old ones. I mean, I’ll have to take a look at the actual documents again to do a revealing spell, but I think--I think it might be us.”

“How often do those two blank spaces show up in the census?” Eliot asks, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Every year between 1893 and 1943,” Quentin says.

“Fifty years,” Eliot says, hushed. “It happened.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, rubbing at Eliot’s forearm where it’s wrapped around his middle. He nudges at Eliot’s jaw with the tip of his nose. “It happened.”

They’re silent for a moment, absorbing this information while they sit wrapped up in each other. It’s one thing for Eliot to know in his heart that it happened, quite another for evidence of it to be recorded on paper, an acknowledgement of what he and Quentin are to each other and what they did together. Eliot isn’t familiar with this feeling that’s pressing against his breastbone, but he thinks he might be thankful.

“You think there are more records of Arielle and Teddy?” Eliot asks.

“I hope so,” Quentin says. “But I’ll need to go back and do some more searching. I couldn’t spend as much time looking as I wanted to. I was down there because I needed to help Josh and Fen find texts on the Monster and its sister.”

“You guys turn up anything?”

“No,” Quentin says, leaning back against Eliot’s chest.

“So what’s the plan?” Eliot asks.

“Margo and Julia say they have it under control. Julia’s looking for a spell to create an incorporate bond. And Margo’s got these ice axes--”

“Ice axes?” Eliot asks.

“It’s sort of a long story,” Quentin says, and Eliot can tell by the lift in his voice that he’s smiling. “She’ll tell it to you. Probably multiple times.…” He trails off, and Eliot waits for him to start talking again. Now is about the time that Quentin should be giving him his usual excited run-down on their next mission.

“What about the Library?” Eliot prompts him. “Apparently they’re a fascist institution now?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, absent-mindedly rubbing Eliot’s forearm. “Kady and the Hedges are working on it.”

“And you’re not involved in that?” Eliot asks.

“Not right now, no.”

Eliot tries to keep his tone casual when he says softly over Quentin’s shoulder. “You wanted magic back more than anything.”

Quentin sighs and sits up so he can face Eliot in profile. He brushes his thumb over the back of Eliot’s hand on his stomach as he speaks. “I did,” he says. “And I wanted to be the hero that saved it. And then I realized there was something that I wanted even more than magic.”

“Which is?” Eliot asks. He looks down at Quentin’s face, tucks a stray hair behind his ear..

Quentin looks up at him, says, “You,” his voice deep and resolute. “The Monster and the Library and magic, I didn’t care about any of it. I just wanted you back.” He takes a deep breath, looks down at the floor, and says, “Eliot, I--I know we can’t promise each other--”

Eliot pulls Quentin against him, both arms wrapped tight around his waist. “I’ll never go anywhere where you can’t find me,” he promises, tucking it into the shell of Quentin’s ear with a press of his lips. Quentin lets out a little relieved sigh of acknowledgement, let’s his head fall against Eliot’s. “I promise,” Eliot goes on. “I’m yours, Q. Forever.”

This close, Eliot can just make out the little smile curling up one corner of Q’s mouth. “Me too,” he says. “I mean, to you. I mean--” he pauses and then says softly, just for the two of them, “I’m yours, El.”

Eliot gives the moment the appropriate beat of silence, and then he asks, “You’re  _ sure  _ you have no current plans to save the world?”

Quentin laughs. “Actually, I uh--Margo actually made me promise that when we got you back we’d--that you and I would stay out of it.”

Eliot chuckles. “Of course she did.”

“So we’re ground control for the time being,” Quentin says. “Julia needs some help looking for something called The Binder. Brace yourself to read a bunch of ancient Greek texts.”

“You could always read them  _ to  _ me,” Eliot suggests.

“Only if you stick your head in my lap,” Quentin says, turning his face up so that their lips brush together.

“I can do that,” Eliot says, pressing his hips up against Quentin’s backside, stroking his belly.

“Maybe you could make a move on me,” Quentin says, voice gravelly, his lips parting in invitation.

Eliot slides their lips together, kisses him with just a little bit of tongue. “Mmm,” Eliot hums. “Gladly.”

Quentin’s already breathing heavy, squirming against his front. “No one’s--,” he pants into Eliot’s mouth in between searing kisses, “No one’s expecting to-- _ hmfph _ \--to see us for--for a couple of days-- _ Mmm _ \--I was thinking--Mmm, maybe--Maybe we could--”

They both jump when an alarm goes off on Quentin’s phone. Quentin grabs it off the desk, grumbling. Eliot sees the word ‘MEDS’ flashing on Quentin’s screen in all caps.

“You’re back on your meds,” Eliot says. “Is that a good thing?”

Quentin sighs and leans back against Eliot’s chest. “Yeah, that’s a good thing. I should have gotten back on them sooner. But better late than never. I need to take those with food, so we should eat something. And we should sleep some more. Like, a lot more.” He nuzzles against Eliot’s jaw, murmurs hotly into his ear. “And we should take a shower. Or a bath. Together.”

“That’s a good plan,” Eliot says, ducking down to keep kissing him, already half hard, insatiable now that he has permission to touch Quentin the way he really wants to.

“And I’d like to blow you,” Quentin says, voice deep and raspy. “For, like, a long time.”

“Mmm. And what order are we doing all these things in?”

Quentin’s laughs. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “We always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: Eliot dies (temporarily) while protecting Quentin and Margo from a librarian. The librarian is Everett, although he’s not actually named in this chapter. Although Eliot isn’t trying to/definitely doesn’t want to die, the spell that Everett throws kills him in a similar way to how Quentin dies in 4x13. It’s not graphic but it is indicated.


End file.
